Improvement in baggage-seals



C. G. S CHN'EID ER,

BAGGAGE-SEAL;

110.174.0111 Patented Feb. 22, 1876.

MPETERS. PHDTO-LQTHOGRAPHEM WASHINGTON. D. C.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

QHRIS TIAN G. SCHNEIDER, OF WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN BAGGAGE-SEALS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 174,01 1, dated February 22, 1876; application filed i February 17, 1876.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHRISTIAN G. SCHNEI- DER, of the city and county of Washington, in the District of Columbia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Baggage-Seals, whereof the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention is in the nature of an improvement in seals having a wire shackle and a soft-metal disk; and the invention consists in a sealing device, having a wire shackle made with a series of coils or interlocking loops at one end adapted to receive the other end of said shackle, whereinit is locked by com pressing the aforesaid coils or loops. The invention further consists in combining with such a shackle a soft-metal sealing-disk.

In the accompanying drawings, illlustrating my invention, Figure 1 is a perspective view of a seal ready to be compressed. Fig. 1 is a transverse section of such seal. Fig. l is a perspective view of the shackle; Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, and-6, perspective views of shackles, hereinafter particularly specified. Fig. 7 shows a modified form of sealing-disk, 1 being a face view, 2 a transverse section, and 3 a cross-section.

' The letter A represents a shackle-wire, preferably of copper or similar soft metal, a single strand, or several strands. On one end of the shackle is formed a series of coils, at. These coils may be interlaced or interlocked, as in Figs. 1 1 2,'and 3,.or they may be straight overlying coils, such as shown in Figs. 4 and 5, or they may be separated coils, as illustrated in Fig. 6, or of other similar or equivalent construction, all possessing this feature, viz: such a construction, shape, or configuration that will permit of the free end I) of the shackle being passed downward through said coils or loops, and then upward through them, and out at the top thereof. When the end 12 is thus inserted in the coils it forms a loop, a, and by compressing said coils this loop is crimped by the successive coils to such an extent as to lock it within them and prevent its being pulled out. The loopbefore the coils are compressed-is drawn upward by pulling on the end 11 until the portion (1 of said loop comes in contact with the base of the coils or some fixed interposed obstruction. In the coils shown inFigs. 1 1 2, and 3, this construction consists of the intersection d of the strands forming the coils or loops; or it may be the metal between the eyes or orifices of the sealing-disk B; or it is shorter coils 6 formed below the other coils, (see Figs. 4 and 5;) or it is the lower coils, of the separated coils shown in Fig. 6. When these shackles are combined with a soft-metal sealing-diskand it will be understood that this mode of using them is the customary and preferable one-the said disk will be cast around the coiled or looped portion, and its metal will fill in between the coils solidly, except where the mold has been so made as to form the two eyes f g which are within the coils or loop. This disk is to be compressed, as is ordinarily done, when the scaling is to be completed.

It may be desirable to conceal the looped portion 0 of the shackle within the disk, and

in order to accomplish this I construct such disk as shown in Fig. 7, (1,2, and 3)- that is, a recess or groove, h, is made from one eye to the other below the coils in the face of the disk, and one side of such eyes is left open, as at t' 0', below said recess It, with an interposed solid portion, it, between said eyes, above and below the recess h. When the loop a is formed, as before described, and before the seal is compressed, said loop is drawn up out of the eyes at i i and placed in the recess or groove h, and then drawn tight, when, upon compressing the disk, the recesses h'j i are filled with the surrounding metal, and the loop thereby embedded within said disk. By this means the disk and its marks used thereupon in sealing would be completely destroyed by any attempt to remove the loop.

It will be found that shackles or seals constructed as above described afford almost absolute protection against fraudulent designs or'efi'ortsupon the goods upon which they are used because of the self-locking nature of the shackles. V

In order to stiffen the coils or loops the end of the wire upon which they are formed may be bent upward, as shown in Fig. 2, or it may be passed through the coils, as in Fig. 5, and then bent upward.

To apply this seal the free end b of the Wire is passed through or around or otherwise connect-ed with the article to be sealed. It is then passed through the eye f or g, and then bent at 0 and passed upward through the other eye, when the disk is compressed and the end b locked within its coils, as described.

What I claim is 1. In a sealing device,a shackle-wire, one end thereof having two eyes vertically parallei-to each other, and each formed of a'series of coils, through both of which eyes the other end of saidwire is threaded and locked therein by compressing the coils;

2. In a sealing device, a shackle-wire, one end thereof having two eyes vertically parallel to each other and formed of a series of I coils adapted to receive the other end of said wire, wherein it is locked by compressing the coils, in combination with a soft-metal disk having two or more th reading-orifices through which the same end of the wire is passed, substantially as specified.

" CHRISTIAN Gr. SCHNEIDER. Witnesses:

CHS. G. EoKLoFF, JNo. SOUTHEY. 

